Celebrate Barrie on Saturday

Celebrate Barrie on Saturday

Laurie Watt photo

Barrie Cycling Club president Robb Meier will help celebrate Barrie with a ride that starts at Memorial Square at 10 a.m. Saturday, winds through downtown and ends at Celebrate Barrie at Centennial Park.

BARRIE - There are more reasons – and more ways – to Celebrate Barrie this Saturday.

In the 11th-annual waterfront festival, an array of community clubs and organizations offer activities for young and old, each adding their own style to not just the festival, but the city as a whole.

“The Ahmadiyya Muslim group is doing henna tattoos and the Caribbean Cultural Institute is doing a steel drum demonstration. You can listen to them play throughout the day. We also have the Barrie Latin Community Centre coming out to do crafts,” said Arin Donnelly, an events programmer with the City of Barrie.

“It’s one of those amazing years where everyone wants to be a part of it. It’s great. We have a really great cross-section, over 50 groups (joining in).”

From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. along the waterfront in the Centennial Park area, tents, entertainment and even an interactive historic village offer different perspectives on our community.

Focusing on nature and the environment are an array of groups, such as the Brereton Field Naturalists, as well as the Barrie Greens, a fair trade group, and the city itself. In the city’s tent, staff will discuss topics including water conservation and parks planning.

Catching the spirit of the festival, the Barrie Cycling Club is organizing a ride Saturday morning to kick off Safe Cycling Week. Open to anyone on any bike, the ride begins at Memorial Square at 10 a.m., explores some of the city’s centre and ends at Celebrate Barrie.

“Barrie is uniquely positioned. We’re labelled an active lifestyle community and we are surrounded by picturesque countryside, with wide-open roads, which are perfect for cycling on. We’ve also got a plethora of fantastic mountain bike trails in our area … My vision for the future is to make Barrie a cycling hub, a destination in our region for people to come with their families and bicycles to ride and sightsee,” said the cycling club’s Robb Meier.